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In re Certification of Need For Additional Judges12/18/2003
Each year Florida's Constitution requires this Court to certify the need for new judges throughout the state using uniform standards. This is the sole constitutional mechanism for ensuring that every Legislature has an accurate systemwide assessment of the judges needed to serve Florida's communities. The goal is to provide an effective and efficient justice system for Florida's growing population that will insure and protect the Rule of Law, the cornerstone of democracy in our state and our nation. The Rule of Law is the truest indicator of a healthy democracy. It is the idea that no person is greater than the law and that, under the law, no one is less important than any other. Key to the operation of the Rule of Law is a core belief: Justice must be timely dispensed to truly be justice. This in turn implies a judicial system with sufficient resources to make timeliness possible.
ASSESSMENT PROCESS
We continue to use established objective measures to determine judicial caseload and the corresponding need for additional judges. Our analysis in past years-and again today-has not only been conservative but has strongly emphasized the need to use less expensive alternatives and to maximize efficiency before seeking more judges. We have steadily moved toward court models that rely heavily on alternatives and skilled support staff.
At the trial level, these efficiencies have included hiring case managers who screen and organize cases to ensure that all legal matters in a case are fully in order before they go before a judge for a decision, guaranteeing the most efficient use of judge time. Other efficiencies include the use of hearing officers and masters to hear matters such as disputes over child support and traffic tickets, and the use of mediation and other cost-saving measures, some discussed below, that have also reduced the need for certifying even more judges. All of these measures ensure that preliminary organizational and ministerial work is done by administrative staff, freeing trial judges to do their essential and unique task-adjudication.
In the district courts of appeal, these models have included adding staff attorneys to conduct important research and to do preliminary screening and analysis of cases, thus freeing the judges to devote their important and more costly time to their most crucial duty-deciding appeals. And, as will be discussed more fully below, these efforts are highlighted by a voluntary decision by the district court judges to increase their own recommended caseload by forty percent, in lieu of adding more judges. This decision reflects not only the dedication of these judges, but also the efficiencies they have achieved through the use of enhanced judicial staff.
At the trial level, this Court has cooperated with the Legislature by adopting a trial-court certification system that the Legislature originally suggested, the "Weighted Caseload System" discussed more fully below. We also stress that our certification is not a statement of what Florida State Courts subjectively want. Rather, it is a statement of what the State Courts objectively need to meet their workload, using accepted standards of measurement. In order to ensure that the certification is as objective as possible, the constitutional framers reposed this duty in the Supreme Court, which itself neither benefits nor loses by the Legislature's final decision on the issue.
We also must acknowledge the very positive efforts of the Legislature in responding to the needs of the judicial branch. We understand the competing priorities lawmakers face in every session. Despite these pressures, the Legislature still has funded a number of new judgeships
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